


Who's a Doctor

by Stranger



Category: Doctor Who, Torchwood
Genre: Crossover, F/F, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-05-09
Updated: 2010-05-09
Packaged: 2017-10-09 09:29:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 837
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/85725
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Stranger/pseuds/Stranger
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A kinda sorta crossover, Torchwood with Who, where Dr. Sato and almost-Dr. Jones meet and converse.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Who's a Doctor

**Author's Note:**

> First posted on LJ on 16 Aug 2007, in support of IBARW 07.

# Who's a Doctor

Martha Jones, medical student on a mission, checked the faded number-plate on a plain wooden door in a stone frame. "Glory of Albion, my aching feet. There's as much glory in this as in ditch-mud."

A slight, sallow-faced woman swathed in labcoat and goggles looked up from a dissecting table as she opened the door. "I said, don't-- oh, do you want something? Are you," she raked Martha's shapeless blue scrubs with a penetrating dark gaze, "a student?"

"Yes, Doctor," said Martha, who had been well-drilled in subservience toward established doctors. "I beg your pardon, Doctor. Doctor Stoker sent me--"

The other woman looked up, becoming human with her expression of distaste. "Is Stoker here?" She peered at Martha, and then removed her goggles, revealing Asian features. "You do mean the Doctor Stoker who's a royal git to the students, don't you?"

"Ahh-- yes," said Martha. "He brought my group over here to see a pancreas-and-liver section, and when we we'd seen it, he tasked me with a message to someone on this floor. I thought this was the room he said."

"That's just like him!" said the doctor. "I'm Doctor Sato, by the way. Toshiko." She briefly held up a latex-gloved hand in the gesture Martha thought of as the handless handshake, used when someone was wrist-deep in sterile -- or unsterile -- gore.

"Martha Jones, fourth year," said Martha, waving a return to the non-handshake. She took a second look at the dissection in progress. "If you don't mind my asking, what's that?"

"Research project," said Doctor Sato, or Toshiko.

"It's a _pig,_ but..." Martha's vision was excellent, and the small corpse on the table was porcine, but not quite what it should be.

"It's a very interesting birth defect," said the doctor, a trifle too smoothly.

"If you say so, Doctor."

"I, oh, dear." Doctor Sato looked at her again and visibly came to a decision. "It's classified under the Official Secrets Act, and if the Doctor Stoker who runs the Royal Hope Hospital knows the first thing about this, I'll eat it. And, just let me say, Eeeww!"

"Ah, I see, _that_ kind of birth defect. It looks like a recombinant mistake. What was it supposed to do if it lived?"

"That would be telling. But if any half-trained doctor can see the," she gave Martha a meaningful glare, _"birth defect ..."_

"Three-quarters trained, if you please," said Martha.

"Noted. You've seen it, and you need to know that the OSA says it's a birth defect. Don't talk about it. Not to anyone, and especially not to Doctor Stoker."

Martha said, seriously, "I won't. Are you sure Doctor Stoker doesn't know enough to send me down here to get into trouble?"

"Positive," said Toshiko. "He's just a git to you and me, but to the Home Secretary, he's a _honking enormous_ git. He wouldn't be let within ten miles of anything that matters. I think there's history there."

"I wouldn't be surprised. I take it you know Doctor Stoker?"

"I did, once upon a time, do some training at the Royal Hope."

Martha said, happily, "My condolences."

There was a noise suspiciously like a snort of laughter from the other side of the dissecting table. "But, he'd hardly be sending me messages. He was always a complete git to the women students, and wouldn't even hit on you afterward."

"Would that make it better?"

"Not really, but at least you'd know why he was doing it."

"Why?" asked Martha, fascinated. Stoker might be pristinely and icily correct at all times, but not all the Royal Hope's senior staff were so fastidious.

Toshiko Sato raised an eyebrow at her. "Pure envy, of course. They want something you've got."

"I suppose that's one way of putting it."

"I don't mean the obvious." Toshiko gave Martha and her blue scrubs another, different sort of glance, and Martha wondered if it would be within the bounds of professional courtesy to return it in kind. Not that she would, of course.

Toshiko was saying, "The seniors at Royal Hope have nice salaries and perks and chances to abuse the FHOs, but there's always the awareness that they've reached their levels of incompetence. You haven't. You might not be just any doctor, when you pass your exams."

"Well, thank you."

The assessing, rather personal gaze was back on Martha. "I shan't see you again until then. But afterward..." Her smile widened.

"Is that a date?"

"If you want it to be."

Martha hadn't thought that one through. Blokes were great. That was, they could be great. But Toshiko, and the unexpected twinkle in her eye, promised something great on its own merits. "Maybe I'll look you up. Doctor Sato."

"Maybe you should. Ask for me at the Canary Wharf office block. Tell them you have a message for me. Don't mention Stoker. And _don't_ tell them you're a doctor."

"Whyever not?"

Toshiko smiled at her again. "I'll have to explain that some time. I hope I get the chance."

  


# # #


End file.
